Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning into the Loser Kit Pinball Podcast.
Speaker: It is episode 158.
Speaker: I am Josh Roop.
Speaker: With me, my co-captain, as always.
Speaker: Scott Larson.
Speaker: And there is a new-ish release, a remastered release.
Speaker: Let's do that.
Speaker: It's a revived release.
Speaker: Yes, brought back from the grave, which is appropriate because it's even got a cross in it.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: It's the Lazarus effect.
Speaker: If you're looking for this game, Metallica Remastered, who are you buying it from, Scott?
Speaker: You know, I'll contact Zach and Nicola, flipping out pinball.
Speaker: They've always been really helpful.
Speaker: And I'm not kidding.
Speaker: This game looks so amazing.
Speaker: If you, I've actually never owned a Metallica.
Speaker: And so I'm looking forward to actually owning this remastered Metallica.
Speaker: So I'm really excited for it.
Speaker: And with everything they've done to it, and we're going to talk about it, it really has made an old game look brand new.
Speaker: And so reach out to Zach and Nicole and the holidays are coming up.
Speaker: So tell them Loser Kid sent you.
Speaker: Use Loser Kid as a code or whatever.
Speaker: And they'll hook you up.
Speaker: Yeah, they'll give you a little something extra special is what they told us.
Speaker: So special we can't talk about here.
Speaker: Hit up Zach and Nicole and they'll give you something extra special.
Speaker: Also, if you're watching YouTube, I'm wearing my political shirt, my flippers and balls for 2024.
Speaker: Straight down the middle.
Speaker: If you want this shirt, because that's who you're voting for this year, then go ahead.
Speaker: Silverballswag.com slash loser kid.
Speaker: It's not our shirt, but you can get the shirt there as well.
Speaker: Are you team flipper or team balls?
Speaker: Always team balls, dude.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Especially if you're going straight down the middle.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Introducing our guest.
Speaker: This man has been insanely on top of his game since moving to Stern.
Speaker: His code is excellent between classics already like Rush and now being able to take the Metallica code and refine it, but still have the nuances of Lyman and just treat it like it's just this perfect little thing that we all enjoy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We've got with us Raymond Davidson.
Speaker: How you doing, Raymond?
Speaker: Hey, Josh, doing good.
Speaker: You know, and Raymond's actually a pretty good pinball player, too, just in case you're wondering.
Speaker: Yeah, what Stern of the Union went out and you're ranked in the Stern Pro Circuit right now, was it fifth or sixth?
Speaker: Probably somewhere around there.
Speaker: I seem to be floating around fifth or sixth in everything, like in IFPA rankings during Pro Circuit, IFPA rating.
Speaker: That's just kind of where I've ended up with all these new kids blowing everything up.
Speaker: You're like the elder statesman now of pinball tournaments.
Speaker: Yeah, it's fun, but every once in a while, I can still sneak a win in there.
Speaker: So that's why we love pinball, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that actually was one of the questions I can't remember if it was on slam tilt or on triple drain, but do we count you as one of the young guns still, or are you, do we finally get to count you as their senior tour?
Speaker: I'm definitely not a young kid.
Speaker: I mean, I am, I am a young kid, but not relative to the kids winning everything.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But they don't even have a driver's license yet.
Speaker: So you don't get carded in our rated movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, okay, you've actually had two projects between Rush when you worked with Borg last, and now that you're working with him again on Metallica, you did Venom and you also did, it was just Rush and Venom.
Speaker: I'm losing my mind.
Speaker: Well, I didn't really do Venom.
Speaker: I helped Venom.
Speaker: You were a sister, right?
Speaker: I did some stuff on it.
Speaker: And also I did some stuff on John Wick.
Speaker: A lot of times they'll parachute people in to kind of help just distribute the workload a little bit.
Speaker: But Rush, Led Zeppelin, and Foo Fighters were my...
Speaker: I wasn't the lead, but I was the, you know, the other half or like kind of the principal other person working on it.
Speaker: You know, kind of saw it all the way through from beginning, middle end, along with the lead.
Speaker: Whereas.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So with Foo Fighters, sorry, were you the leader?
Speaker: You weren't.
Speaker: No, Tanya Kleist was the lead on Foo Fighters, but I was, you know, lead wingman or whatnot.
Speaker: So me and him kind of tag teamed it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But still, I mean,
Speaker: you've got quite the repertoire between, and I mean, it's a heavy workload.
Speaker: There's all this.
Speaker: The thing is, is pinball has become very software heavy in the last decade or so, if not a little bit before that.
Speaker: And so like looking at this, and like you said, Venom, even if you're tag teaming on Venom, between that and Foo Fighters and Rush and Zeppelin and Avengers, I mean, that's quite an amazing little list of games.
Speaker: In the four years you've been there, five years now,
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I've touched quite a bit.
Speaker: I did work on Jurassic Park during the co-op update.
Speaker: The Jurassic Park 30th update helped juice up some of those control room modes.
Speaker: And yeah, Avengers was when I started on when I first got here.
Speaker: I also did some tweaks on Iron Maiden.
Speaker: It's just kind of, you know, whatever, wherever they need you.
Speaker: And then at one point, they were like, we need you to do Metallica.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh.
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, you're the lead.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So tell me about one.
Speaker: When did, when did this idea come about that we are going to revisit Metallica?
Speaker: Man, I don't know.
Speaker: Like probably what year 20, 20,
Speaker: I mean, I started, I knew about it at the end of like last year.
Speaker: So like a year ago from now is when I kind of got the rumblings of like, this is coming, but I'm sure it was in the works before then.
Speaker: You know, I just didn't hear about it.
Speaker: Well, the nice thing about something like this is that this is really a new avenue that Stern is opening up because we've always done vault additions with Stern.
Speaker: So they've been able to bring back another game for a release.
Speaker: I swear they ran Star Trek on the line every year for about five years where they're like, okay, now we're...
Speaker: Going to do a quick run of Star Trek.
Speaker: And it was always interesting.
Speaker: So I'm like, I didn't know, like, you needed a Star Trek anymore.
Speaker: But hey, however, this is, you know, this is a way of taking a game that was early DMD.
Speaker: Well, sorry, not early DMD, but early in the last in the, okay, the, the Renaissance of Stern.
Speaker: So I'm going to call like everything past ACDC where it's, you know, it's kind of like the Valley Williams, the glory days in the nineties.
Speaker: It seems like everything past ACDC has been this new resurgence of pinball and it's,
Speaker: It's on the earlier side of that.
Speaker: So it's 11 years old.
Speaker: But when you walked up to a Metallica, it did feel different because even though the game was set up amazing, the layout, the code, it still presented like an older game just because it was DMD and we have moved on to LCD.
Speaker: So this is actually an interesting avenue that Stern is approaching.
Speaker: And I heard that they were toying a little bit with doing a DMD, you know, kind of like a vault edition first.
Speaker: Is that correct?
Speaker: Maybe they were just exploring all options.
Speaker: I have no idea.
Speaker: The only story I know is that the band saw like, I think it was Rush, but it was like LCD, like, wow, why don't we have something cool like this?
Speaker: I think that's all I know about it.
Speaker: That was my suspicion, actually, that Metallica actually saw what you're able to do with the modern music pens.
Speaker: And even though theirs was great, it still, you know, it was kind of in the early days of the music pen.
Speaker: And so you can see how far they've come.
Speaker: That's actually pretty amazing to say, okay, we're going to do it.
Speaker: However, the approach is, hey, we have...
Speaker: this layout that's legendary.
Speaker: It's a top 10 layout.
Speaker: We have code, you know, the, the late grape Lyman sheets, and we're going to do something to bring it more modern.
Speaker: So how was this pitch to you?
Speaker: I mean, yeah, I was just said, I was told it's going to be a remaster, essentially.
Speaker: You know, the old same layout and rules, mostly, of the old game.
Speaker: But we're going to put all of our new hardware...
Speaker: Borg's going to tweak some things that didn't work as well the first time around.
Speaker: He's going to add new fancy cool things just because he wants to because he's a creative dude who likes cool shit.
Speaker: Sorry, my French there.
Speaker: But yeah, that's kind of all it really was.
Speaker: It was just Borg was going to make this awesome newer version and I was going to help with software.
Speaker: So like Scott pointed out, I mean, this is the original rules was done by the late great Lyman sheets.
Speaker: And so how do you take a rule set that's so beloved?
Speaker: And so, I mean, it's just, this game has been revered as one of the top Stern games ever made.
Speaker: How do you take a code set like that and expand upon it, but keep the nuances and keep that original vibes and feelings without feeling like you're, you're overwriting what Lyman did.
Speaker: Well, I guess for me, I just started with what he had there already.
Speaker: So my primary goal when I started on the project was to get the game...
Speaker: to just run in spike two, you know, with the DMD animations or sort of working and with the, everything and the rules and stuff, basically just try to get the existing game working.
Speaker: And then once I did that, then I just went in from there, you know, iterated, replaced, you know, got the new animations in, you know, and then eventually the new modes kind of just put those in on top of everything else that was going on.
Speaker: You know, I had to come up with kind of different rules, nuances, but just, yeah, just kind of everything was just layered in, like, you know, on top.
Speaker: So someone who has owned Metallica or been familiar with it, what are the different code options that you are going to be adding to a game that they should be very familiar with?
Speaker: I mean, this game is, what, 11 years old?
Speaker: And it's been played to death in tournaments.
Speaker: And so what are the extra options that you said, I'm going to tweak this and I'm going to move this?
Speaker: Yeah, so basically there's just more to do in single ball play now because before I felt it was all...
Speaker: You know, you had to rush to a multiball, and if you weren't in multiball, you weren't doing anything.
Speaker: So I kind of wanted to fill in the gaps.
Speaker: And so the 72 seasons mode will reward you for hitting those dangerous stand-up targets, but only when you're in single-ball play will those qualify.
Speaker: but then you have a chance for some, you know, some big scores.
Speaker: But it just gives you something else to do because a lot of times in tournaments, you'd have played your multiballs already and now you're kind of trapped and you're in jail.
Speaker: And so I kind of just wanted to have something to fill that dead air.
Speaker: So the other mode, hardwired, I felt the game didn't utilize all the shots, you know, as much as it could.
Speaker: So for hardwired, you have to hit all five shots, you know, the right ramp, left ramp, right orbit, left orbit.
Speaker: great marker lane.
Speaker: And to just kind of reward the player for like, Hey, if you're in single ball play and you know, you hit the right ramp, it'll advance you towards this hardwired thing.
Speaker: It just kind of gives you more things to kind of look and see like, all right, I'm, I'm 10 hits to a multi-ball, but I'm only this shot and this shot towards hardwired.
Speaker: So maybe I'll start that mode first.
Speaker: And then of course, because, you know, keeping in the spirit of the rules that linemen had,
Speaker: if you start something, you can always bring it into a multi-ball.
Speaker: So if you, if you want, you know, you can start in single ball, get your mode set up, start them, then start multi-ball.
Speaker: Now you've got the party going.
Speaker: So that was kind of my, my thoughts on how the new, the two new modes should, should fit in.
Speaker: Well, and I heard there's some special extras that you guys have put in here too.
Speaker: I know John board was very,
Speaker: uh, proud of blackened and what you guys had put in there.
Speaker: And he said he wasn't going to, he told us the Easter egg, but I guess you're going to have to get the game and, and find it yourself.
Speaker: But, uh, there's just little nuances you guys had put in there as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I can talk a little bit about blackened.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: It's not in the code right now.
Speaker: So the one that ships, you know, they're shipping tomorrow, you know.
Speaker: But it will be in a future update pretty quickly.
Speaker: But the idea for Blackened is it's sort of a reward for playing all four multiballs really well.
Speaker: So if you...
Speaker: If you get, you know, a couple of super jackpots in the electric chair multiball, a couple of super jackpots in the gray marker multiball and so on and all four.
Speaker: And it also makes you pay attention.
Speaker: Like normally people would never go after snake multiball, but now, you know, well, if you get snake, now you get this blackened multiball too, if you get all, you know, all four.
Speaker: But I also wanted to reward people.
Speaker: So the better you do in the multiballs, the better blackened will be.
Speaker: So if you do, you know, really well in some of the multi balls, black and could be like a three, four or five ball multi ball.
Speaker: If you kind of do the bare minimum, it might only be a two ball multi ball.
Speaker: But that's still cool because it's still a new multi ball and that people can experience.
Speaker: And it will have a really cool intro, intro sequence that, that, you know, we don't want to spoil as Josh alluded to, but that'll be cool.
Speaker: And yeah,
Speaker: Yeah, so I think that's a really cool way because it kind of another mode, you know, Borg added those extra inserts above the right scoop so that, you know, he thought it was clever to just kind of, oh, we can have a second story of things over here.
Speaker: And so blackened fit over there along with hardwired.
Speaker: So, yeah, everything was just kind of very nicely, you know, sprinkled in with care to try to keep it cohesive with the original game.
Speaker: So you spoke earlier about layering Spike 2 and SAM systems and whatnot together.
Speaker: Were you also kind of writing programs so it would make it easier in the future if maybe you want to go back?
Speaker: Or was this just kind of like a we did as we go kind of thing?
Speaker: I mean, I was kind of learning as I was doing it.
Speaker: So, I mean, I have to go back and look at all my, you know, things that I did and kind of refresh myself or see like, oh, yeah, this is how you convert this to this.
Speaker: This is how I did this to this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, you know, as I'm going through it, I'm just finding things like, oh, the last, you know, the Sam game used a lamp matrix.
Speaker: Now we have node boards.
Speaker: So instead of a row and a column for a switch, it's a node board address and a, you know, device LED or whatever.
Speaker: So there's like just sort of that translation that had to happen.
Speaker: And then testing it and also like, you know, the Sam game...
Speaker: For lamps, you could have... It had an older way of... Sam was... It was very binary with things were either on or off.
Speaker: So flash lamps...
Speaker: were either on or off.
Speaker: Coils were either on or off.
Speaker: Whereas Spike, there's a lot more nuance of you can light it up, you know, maybe 50%, 60%.
Speaker: You can fire the coil 40%.
Speaker: You can hold it for 30%.
Speaker: So when you're translating all of that, you have to kind of be careful and, you know, try to keep it the same, but using the new kind of version of those calls.
Speaker: Okay, so walk us through a little bit more about the SAM versus... So explain to me like a five-year-old because I know nothing about coding.
Speaker: And so to me, when I hear about an old thing, I think about, well, why isn't there just like some algorithm where you...
Speaker: plug it in and it just automatically converts it or just reads the code, you know, just making like spike two or even, you know, spike three, four or whatever, make it so it can just read the old code and, and reverse engineer it.
Speaker: Like, tell me why that doesn't work.
Speaker: Well, you need a human to, to figure out, you know, what should be what, once you kind of figure out,
Speaker: how it gets from one to another, you can, you know, do find all, replace all.
Speaker: But then you'll, you'll find bugs too.
Speaker: So you got to test everything.
Speaker: So you got to go through, you know, file by file after you've translated it and, and try those modes out and make sure that it, it, nothing got lost in translation.
Speaker: You know, some, I was finding, you know, maybe some light effect wasn't showing up or it wasn't showing up
Speaker: with the intention that it should have, you know, like one example was the, uh, RGBs, uh, were all out of a hundred on Sam.
Speaker: So it was like,
Speaker: you know, a level like the red level could be, you know, zero to 100, zero to 100.
Speaker: But then on spike, we kind of went with zero to 255.
Speaker: And so before I realized that that had changed, I was noticing the colors were a little off or they were too dim or, you know, weren't right.
Speaker: So it was just a lot of trial and error because only you know what's right.
Speaker: You know, you need a human to kind of know what is right and what is wrong.
Speaker: So was it kind of surreal working on this game considering I assume this is when you play and play in tournaments.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's kind of known as a classic game.
Speaker: Is it just something you're like, you never thought you'd work on kind of thing?
Speaker: It was pretty, pretty wild.
Speaker: You know, when I first got heard, heard that I was on it, you know, and it was like, well, this is a really popular game.
Speaker: You know, people are going to expect it to be correct.
Speaker: People are going to notice everything.
Speaker: And it's,
Speaker: It's a big ask, but I was also very excited because I liked the game and I had played it a bunch.
Speaker: So I had no problem, you know, every day working on it, you know, it felt fun because I was just trying to get it to be awesome.
Speaker: Like, you know, and it was cool because you have like the answer key, right?
Speaker: So I'm working on the code and I have the answer key of what it should do.
Speaker: And, but like, I haven't got there yet.
Speaker: So it was like a fun little exercise where I'm like,
Speaker: Code, code, code, code, code.
Speaker: Okay, let's see how it looks.
Speaker: Okay, now compare that to the old one.
Speaker: You know, that was kind of the process.
Speaker: So did you have like an old one?
Speaker: Yeah, that's exactly what I was saying.
Speaker: Did you have an old one and a new one next to each other so you could test it out simultaneously?
Speaker: Yeah, eventually we found we got an old Sam up and running, but...
Speaker: It was, I mean, a lot of it, I actually kind of went to like YouTube videos and other coverage to see, you know, how the old game worked and just like kind of logic and reasoning and remembering things.
Speaker: And, but yeah, every once in a while I'd have to go and kind of just double sanity check, like, okay, did the old game do that?
Speaker: And I actually found a couple of bugs and stuff doing like throughout it.
Speaker: So, you know, I was noticing like,
Speaker: Oh, that's weird.
Speaker: The old game has this code that's supposed to light up the fuel lane orange when the fuel jackpot is lit, but it just doesn't work because it's bugged because this logic is out of order.
Speaker: And I went and checked on the old game, and I'm like...
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: It wasn't me.
Speaker: It was originally bugged.
Speaker: So then I fixed it.
Speaker: And, and so like, that was cool to kind of uncover little things and make them better.
Speaker: So, you know, it was, it was, it was pretty fun.
Speaker: I have to say the new code is amazing.
Speaker: We got Scott and I, well, Scott didn't get to play as long as I did, but I, I wasn't giving up the game.
Speaker: I'd let, I'd rotate obviously while we were there at Stern, but I, we were there for at least a good two or three hours and just playing this game over and over.
Speaker: What made me chuckle though, there was one point where I was playing,
Speaker: And I drained, but I thought the ball save was on.
Speaker: But it was because all the lights were flashing on the game.
Speaker: And I said, no, the ball save's on.
Speaker: And you ran right over Ray.
Speaker: And you're like, no, that's a sin.
Speaker: That's like the cardinal sin, right?
Speaker: You had mistaken the 72 seasons light for the ball save light.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I never used, we never, even Lineman, I was looking, he always masked out all the important lights, the ball save, shoot again lights,
Speaker: the outlane lights should always be on you know that sort of thing
Speaker: I just loved how you were, you were so making sure you had a dog whistle for a coder.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I hate when things are wrong.
Speaker: Like that is one thing I hate is when I see something that is wrong.
Speaker: Cause I want to fix it.
Speaker: I have done a, and this is interesting.
Speaker: And this is just how my brain works.
Speaker: There are times when I get fooled out when you like the shoot again is illuminated on certain games and
Speaker: And it's like the same as the same area as the ball save, but it's not flashing.
Speaker: It's just solid.
Speaker: And so I'll let it drain.
Speaker: Then realize I just screwed up.
Speaker: Or you had an extra ball.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I just had an extra ball.
Speaker: I was like, Oh, technically you get to shoot again.
Speaker: I do get to shoot again.
Speaker: Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker: So how was it different being a lead versus the other games that you've worked on?
Speaker: The main difference is there's no one kind of above you to, you know, kind of check with, like, is this okay if I do this?
Speaker: It's like, well, ask yourself, is this okay if I do this?
Speaker: You're kind of the one who decides, you know, when you're talking about either risky things or like,
Speaker: if you're kind of weighing decisions one way or the other, you can still ask people, you know, if you need help with things.
Speaker: And sometimes I would bounce ideas off of people.
Speaker: But in the end, it's like me who makes the final call, not someone else.
Speaker: Whereas before it was always me who was kind of giving ideas and talking and like, what do you think of this?
Speaker: Is this okay?
Speaker: I'm going to do this.
Speaker: Is that okay?
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: And then someone else sometimes veto it or they'd be like, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: So now it's all on me.
Speaker: Was, is it harder to convert an old code into new language and new software?
Speaker: Or is it, is it harder to come up with the rules from scratch?
Speaker: Well, I guess the code from scratch.
Speaker: So when you had to, when you had to translate from an older language, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I mean, with a new game, you have to do all of the,
Speaker: you kind of have to do all this stuff plus come up with everything on your own.
Speaker: Whereas at least for me, I had a lot of it already there.
Speaker: So I just had to make it work and kind of improve things and tweak things.
Speaker: Whereas it wasn't just an empty file, you know?
Speaker: So, um,
Speaker: So I'd be lying if I said there was more work, you know, doing this than like a full Cornerstone game.
Speaker: But also I'm the only one on this game.
Speaker: Like I didn't have any support or anyone else.
Speaker: So it was just me the whole time.
Speaker: So it kind of worked out that way.
Speaker: But it was still a ton of work.
Speaker: It's just it was a ton of work for one person instead of three or four.
Speaker: And so that's kind of, you know, I spent a lot of days putting in the new animations, making sure the text would show up in the right spots and, you know, making sure I get sounds from Jerry to put in for the new animations.
Speaker: One thing that was a big thing I really wanted to preserve was the display presentation priority.
Speaker: So on Metallica,
Speaker: Everything is kind of... You know, it'll show you the jackpot effect right away.
Speaker: And then if something else happens, it'll show you that right away.
Speaker: It's just kind of like, as soon as something happens, it checks, like, am I a higher priority than this other thing?
Speaker: Like, show me versus don't show me.
Speaker: And some things might get lost.
Speaker: You know, you might not see an animation if another one stomps on top of it.
Speaker: But our existing code that a lot of their other games are using...
Speaker: kind of likes to cue things up and kind of make sure you're seeing everything because there's a lot of cool stuff.
Speaker: You know, we want to see all the animations.
Speaker: But I wanted to keep Metallica the same as it was because otherwise people would notice and it would be different.
Speaker: And so I wanted to be faithful.
Speaker: And so I had to kind of
Speaker: change the system a little bit from, you know, how I had done animations on the other games and kind of come up with my own, like, all right, how do I translate this from the old way into the new way so that it's faithful and uses all the same priorities that the old one does, but then it also uses the LCD animations the correct way, you know, instead of the dots.
Speaker: So that was kind of something I had to solve on my own, you know.
Speaker: There were some other things, lots of light questions like light effects.
Speaker: I learned a lot about how those work.
Speaker: You know, when you're when you're the lead, you kind of have to know everything and dig in really deep and get a real fundamental understanding.
Speaker: You can't just copy and paste things that the lead did because, you know, that works.
Speaker: It's like, well, now I'm the lead.
Speaker: So I have to make sure I understand how everything works.
Speaker: So you got to do a lot extra on this game.
Speaker: What was your favorite part of the game that you got to do?
Speaker: Whether it be a new mode or I personally like Easter eggs.
Speaker: So was there like an Easter egg that's your favorite in there?
Speaker: I don't think there's any Easter eggs right now, but I like.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: Well, I liked, yeah, the new modes were fun because I got to come up with ideas for them.
Speaker: But I just, I think my favorite thing working on it is just getting the cool animations in and watching the game slowly kind of transform.
Speaker: Because like I said, when I started, it was using kind of the dot matrix animations, although some of it was glitchy.
Speaker: It didn't really work all that well.
Speaker: But as I would get in new art from the art team and then I would spend the time to implement it,
Speaker: It's like, okay, now it's a little bit more complete and then you'd see it evolve.
Speaker: And then I remember when I was done with every, you know, every old animation had been converted to a new animation.
Speaker: It was like really cool to say like, here it is.
Speaker: It's all done.
Speaker: It was just really cool to see it kind of come alive throughout time.
Speaker: Was working with the UI a little different, not the UI.
Speaker: Well, yeah, the, the blacklight was that.
Speaker: Is that more difficult to work with?
Speaker: Or is it just kind of like a typical light that you deal with?
Speaker: Because I love the key animation where it glows from the hammer onto the play field showing you that your lock is lit.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that was cool.
Speaker: I really was happy with that.
Speaker: And that was another thing I learned being a lead is it's not just software.
Speaker: You also work with
Speaker: the designer a lot more, the art team a lot more.
Speaker: And it was up to me to kind of know what I was asking, like when I needed something from the art team and making sure, you know, work like for instance, Borg originally had,
Speaker: You know, he added some new inserts and things.
Speaker: And I was like, you know, it'd be cool if we put 2x scoring on that insert because the old game didn't have 2x scoring insert.
Speaker: It had 2x scoring, but it didn't have an insert.
Speaker: And Borg was like, oh, yeah, that's a good idea.
Speaker: We should do that.
Speaker: And so then he would update his docs and everything.
Speaker: And so the key was another thing where he put a hammer UV, like a UV light inside the hammer and
Speaker: because he just thought it would be cool.
Speaker: Like he, you know, he, he put some UV here, UV here.
Speaker: And I'm like, well, I'm going to light up the UV to tell you that lock is lit.
Speaker: And before there was any UV art, you could kind of see like a little purple glow.
Speaker: And that was like cool enough for me.
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, all right.
Speaker: Lock is lit.
Speaker: This is very useful because the old game didn't tell you if lock was lit.
Speaker: It would be like kind of a surprise.
Speaker: And Borg was like, yeah, we could have a little key.
Speaker: like a little key logo there.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So, and then it lights up the key.
Speaker: So there was a lot of collaboration like that.
Speaker: And in general, the UV lights, yeah, they're just normal lights.
Speaker: You just tell them to turn on and off just like any other lights.
Speaker: But, you know, you kind of want to make sure the GI is probably off when you're using them for their full effect.
Speaker: So they don't get washed out by the light from the other lights.
Speaker: But yeah, it was pretty, pretty easy to implement.
Speaker: And yeah, it was, it was fun working, working with Borg and watching it kind of evolve.
Speaker: Now, now with rush rushes, they were quite involved in the process and getting you a lot of concert footage, getting you a lot of access information.
Speaker: And tell me how that process was integrating the concert clips and choreographing them with what you're doing.
Speaker: Because I'm assuming that would, that is certainly a next level of integration over the DMD.
Speaker: Yeah, so the concert footage was basically for, you know, when you're in main play or it's just the background, you know, you're not showing an award at the time because the old game just had score, right?
Speaker: It didn't really have, and it had text kind of on a black background.
Speaker: And so the concert footage kind of fills that void and...
Speaker: It does it pretty nicely.
Speaker: And I was able to use, you know, some of the code from Rush to kind of figure out how that game works.
Speaker: kind of synchronizes and keeps track because if you're watching the concert and then you hit a shot and animation just shows up you want it to pick up where it left off in the concert um but you still want the music to be playing the whole time and so there's like synchronization stuff you had to do um and again background priorities like if you're in one mode then you start another mode now it's going to change the song and so then it's going to change the concert footage
Speaker: And that was another, you know, priority stacking thing I tried to get right from the old Metallica because a lot of that was –
Speaker: based on the order you did stuff.
Speaker: So if you had one mode running and then you started another mode, the newer mode would be the background that wins.
Speaker: But our newer games, it's more of just an absolute priority of like everything just kind of has a priority and whatever's running that we deem most important is the one that shows up.
Speaker: So that was another thing I had to kind of figure out, but it was...
Speaker: It's cool.
Speaker: And I think it seamlessly kind of fits.
Speaker: You know, you can see just James rocking out, you know, all of them rocking out.
Speaker: And it's it's just it's just fun because you still need a place to look up and see text and information.
Speaker: So you're probably not staring at the band, but other people watching will be staring at the band.
Speaker: And, you know, sometimes you might look up and see, and it's like, it just kind of makes you smile because it's cool.
Speaker: You know, it's really cool that we have the ability to do this.
Speaker: Well, that's also something I really loved while playing the game was, you know, in the old game, it seemed like you had a pause and you'd scroll through the screens and you had to find the information that you're specifically looking for and you're trying to interpret it all.
Speaker: But now you got the LCD and it's, you look up and it's like,
Speaker: oh, I've got a couple more shots to the snake.
Speaker: I just need to do this and that.
Speaker: And boom, I'm on my way.
Speaker: And I've also got to say, too, speaking of the snake, that shot feels so much better now.
Speaker: I don't know what Borg did, but I don't feel like it ever rejected on me when I went for the snake, as long as I got a good clean shot, right?
Speaker: And it felt like on the old game, you didn't really want to hit the snake because you didn't know what you were going to get.
Speaker: So, I mean, just over and over, there's just little things that were tweaked in this game.
Speaker: That makes the quality of life so much better, right?
Speaker: Yeah, that was actually a challenge.
Speaker: The UI screen, because the concert footage is so cool, you don't want to crowd over it because you're going to cut off his head while he's singing.
Speaker: You don't want to do that.
Speaker: So I had to find a way to convey everything in the smallest border possible without being put on your glasses and read.
Speaker: So I had to balance, make sure the font's big enough, but make sure it's not
Speaker: too big.
Speaker: And I think it came out really good.
Speaker: Like you were saying, if you thought that you liked it while you were playing, it sounds like we came in, you know, had a good spot where we ended up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Tell me about the expression lightings integration, because that is, and you can see rush over my, over my shoulder.
Speaker: That's one thing that, and I still need to get the speaker lights for it, but that is one thing that really takes a music pin to the next level.
Speaker: And so tell me about the choreography and the coordination of getting the speaker lights and the expression lights to enhance what you're doing.
Speaker: Yeah, basically, you know, Mike Vinacor, he does kind of the custom light shows for all the songs.
Speaker: And then I have to get them in the game using kind of the data.
Speaker: So he gives me a big data file, you know, with a bunch of times and colors and stuff.
Speaker: And then I run it through like a script thing and it generates some stuff, all technical, whatever.
Speaker: But what's cool is, you know, I had other games to look at.
Speaker: you know, Rush, Foo Fighters, Zeppelin to kind of borrow from and make sure I was doing it right.
Speaker: And but and it worked out, you know, it got I got it up and running pretty quickly, which I was pretty happy about.
Speaker: You know, I want
Speaker: when we're showing the game with all the expression lights, we want it to work.
Speaker: And at first I was a little nervous.
Speaker: I'm like, wait, the expo is in like that, like this soon.
Speaker: I'm like, I don't know if we'll be able to get all the expression lights in, but luckily Mike was working hard.
Speaker: And like I said, once you,
Speaker: kind of get used to how the system works.
Speaker: They were able to go in.
Speaker: They look great.
Speaker: And then I also had to come up with an algorithm to kind of transpose them onto the speaker lights because now anyone can have speaker lights for their game.
Speaker: And the LEs come with speaker lights.
Speaker: And those look great too.
Speaker: Those are even more like kind of in your face.
Speaker: Like those look really cool.
Speaker: Yeah, they look great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But then there's also a couple of moments like at the start of electric chair multiball, you don't really want the speaker lights and the expression lights just kind of doing their own thing.
Speaker: It's like, no, you want to focus on the buildup of the electric chair multiball.
Speaker: So I had to go and kind of
Speaker: you know, include them into the rest of the light shows.
Speaker: And that was a lot, another lot of work I had to do is a lot of the old light shows had all their lights defined, but now we have more lights.
Speaker: We have expression lights, speaker lights, the new inserts for the modes, you know, have to kind of piece all those in.
Speaker: But we can do some really cool effects with the expression and speaker light combo for sure.
Speaker: So I don't know if you can speak to this or not, but why did, why was Sparky changed up from what he originally was?
Speaker: Was that more of a Dirty Donnie thing?
Speaker: And now with the new art from the Metallica artist, was that just kind of the direction or what?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I wasn't involved in that side of things.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I love the new Sparky.
Speaker: Me too.
Speaker: I'm a heretic.
Speaker: I didn't really love the old Sparky.
Speaker: I thought it was okay.
Speaker: It was very stylized.
Speaker: But this art presentation feels more Metallica to me.
Speaker: I remember when we first saw the Playfield.
Speaker: We saw the Playfield come back from Reese, and we were just like, holy, this is so cool.
Speaker: Yeah, I know, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you can argue either way.
Speaker: You could argue the R packages.
Speaker: Really, the one thing that Stern does really well is, yes, they give you that extra something in the LE that makes it look, okay, this is the top, this looks great.
Speaker: But they've also done such a good job of, even if you choose to go a premium route or even a pro route, that you don't feel like you're...
Speaker: you're getting shortchanged because it is a complete game, a complete art package into itself.
Speaker: And there are other manufacturers who we talked about before that really do not hit that mark.
Speaker: Yeah, I think the games look gorgeous, both of them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that, and that foil on the side of the foil is so good.
Speaker: Ellie is just amazing.
Speaker: I love, I love that you guys integrated the, the black light into this and that like you were speaking of, you know, you, when it, when it switches and they all look like skeletal ties.
Speaker: Oh, it's so good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When Sparky gets shocked and the teeth glowing looks so good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm really happy with how those turned out.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: So you're doing the Ellie's first, correct?
Speaker: Is that okay?
Speaker: So the, the Ellie's are on the line right now.
Speaker: Is that, is that fair to say?
Speaker: They are awaiting Borg's approval.
Speaker: He's going to go and, you know, look them, look, look them over and make sure they're up to his standards and everything's shooting good and behaving as it should.
Speaker: So they'll, they'll be, they'll be out soon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's exciting.
Speaker: So remind me, so the new Metallica logo in the back that lights up and whatnot, what does that do?
Speaker: And, and,
Speaker: Where did that decision come from?
Speaker: It looks awesome.
Speaker: That's what it does.
Speaker: Just awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, I think Borg just thought he wanted to be able to see your progress on that feature without having to look at Instant Info.
Speaker: And he just thought it was cool to... That logo, the Metallica logo is so iconic.
Speaker: Like...
Speaker: It was so, you know, it's a no brainer.
Speaker: Like, let's put it wherever we can.
Speaker: Like, it just looks really cool.
Speaker: And he just thought it was fun to, as you're hitting the ramps, you're seeing stuff light up and you're making, making progress, you know, getting that feedback right in your eyeballs, you know, right as you're playing.
Speaker: And what does that tie to?
Speaker: Was the Metallica sign tied to code wise?
Speaker: The left and right ramps.
Speaker: Every time you hit one, you get a letter.
Speaker: And then if you spell Metallica, then it starts the Lady Justice round.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You've been playing this game for years.
Speaker: Ray Day walks up to a Metallica pinball machine.
Speaker: What is your progress?
Speaker: Like what, what is your path that you like choosing on this game?
Speaker: Uh, I mean, it's pretty straightforward.
Speaker: Um, you go for sparky just cause he, it carries over across balls.
Speaker: So if you start in ball one and you hit it a couple of times and die, you know, it's annoying, but you've made progress so that on ball two or three, you can finally start sparky and kind of get everything going.
Speaker: Um, so I'm a sparky player.
Speaker: I know some people that go for the grade marker drop targets cause it's fewer shots, but every ball they reset.
Speaker: Um, so I,
Speaker: That was actually helpful in helping me, you know, the outlane ball saves, the resurrect saves.
Speaker: Those are, I made them so you get them by hitting the drop targets on the grade markers.
Speaker: Cause I wanted to kind of balance out.
Speaker: Cause at least for me, if I'm only ever going sparky,
Speaker: You know, there's probably a lot of other people only going Sparky.
Speaker: And so now it'll help balance, you know, maybe people will start going for grade marker because you'll at least try to get a ball save, you know, as long as people don't turn them off from tournaments like a lot of tournaments seem to do.
Speaker: But, hey, I'm the lead now.
Speaker: I can tell you whether you can turn them off or not.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: You should get like a lead code.
Speaker: Like when you log in under insider connected, that it just reverts to your presets.
Speaker: Like, I don't think that would be very fair.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But you're the lead.
Speaker: I mean, you can do it.
Speaker: Uh, now, but, um, but yeah, you basically, you get a multi-ball going and then, um,
Speaker: You try to get snake and points.
Speaker: The multi-ball itself will give you some good points, but you also really have to focus on the items.
Speaker: So I don't know if you know how the item system works in Metallica.
Speaker: It's actually a little counterintuitive, and I don't know how many people actually understand it, but...
Speaker: there's an arrow on the play field that's lit solid.
Speaker: It's like a bluish color.
Speaker: It's just a solid arrow.
Speaker: And that arrow doesn't mean to shoot that shot.
Speaker: It means this is your currently active shot.
Speaker: So if you hit Sparky, it will make an electric chair insert light up underneath that shot.
Speaker: And if you hit snake, it's going to make a snake appear.
Speaker: And if you hit the grave marker, drop target, it's going to make a cross appear on that shot.
Speaker: And if you get all three, um,
Speaker: on the same shot that starts a coffin hurry up.
Speaker: And what's cool about that is when you lock in that coffin, hurry up.
Speaker: Now those three things, the chair, the cross and the snake will stay there for the rest of the game.
Speaker: So normally when you drain all of the items that you have on the play field will go away.
Speaker: But if you get the hurry up,
Speaker: They'll stay there.
Speaker: And what's good about having items on the play field is that's how you light your big scoring crank it up modes.
Speaker: So if you have a shot that has a snake and a cross on it, every time you hit that shot, you're getting a cross and you're getting a snake and you need 12 of each to qualify crank it up, which is, you know, after you've done your multi-ball, you might kind of look around and see where your items are and kind of pick some off and try to get to that 12 of each.
Speaker: So you can play the crank it up mode.
Speaker: Speaking of which, actually, I guess that's a decent segue.
Speaker: This game will have the challenge modes that you can play the crank it up modes like right from the beginning.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: But you have to kind of earn them a little bit.
Speaker: So you have to.
Speaker: Like a shark teeth thing.
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Like a shark teeth thing.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly like the Shark Teeth, but instead of Shark Teeth, you're earning the items.
Speaker: So as you're logged in playing normal games and you're getting electric chairs and coffins and snakes and crosses, they're going into your little bank account and you can cash them in for a challenge mode.
Speaker: So if you get 12 of each item on your Insider account, now you can play one of the challenge modes or...
Speaker: you can save them all up and get, uh, 60, 12 times five, 60 of each item.
Speaker: And that will let you play, uh, the end of the line, which is the final wizard mode that almost nobody has seen.
Speaker: Uh, cause it's very hard to get to, but now if you just play the game normally enough and you, you know, maybe resist doing a challenge mode, uh, you can cash it all in and play the end of the line.
Speaker: Um, which I thought was really cool.
Speaker: A good opportunity.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And yeah, I just really liked that idea.
Speaker: It's smart just because you, when you're coding the end of a game, you're, you're really putting a lot of work in and a lot of payoff for people, for the vast majority of people who are never going to see it.
Speaker: And so being able to find like a way of making that's okay.
Speaker: I was at my friend's house the other day and actually we just spent all night doing the jaws, a shark teeth, like doing the, you know, the revenge.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I got to do some of that.
Speaker: I have, I have, I'm maxed out on shark teeth right now.
Speaker: I have 999.
Speaker: I won't let me go any higher.
Speaker: And I need, I need to start playing those.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The shark teeth, it's hilarious because you're, you're, you're still kind of hoping they secretly help they drain.
Speaker: So you can, you can play and also crush their skulls.
Speaker: But it's, it's fun because everybody's shouting out.
Speaker: It was like, no, they're on the right.
Speaker: They're on the right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's really cool.
Speaker: And this is a good balance because, you know, this way you have to work for it a little bit, you know, and it won't feel old because if you can just go up and keep playing Fade to Black as many times as you want, it might get a little old.
Speaker: But this way it kind of sprinkles out like, well, you got to play the game a little bit, earn some items and then cash them in here, cash them in there.
Speaker: So I'm excited to see people, you know, take their phones out and make sure they're getting credit for their items every time they play.
Speaker: When am I mistaken?
Speaker: Wasn't there different songs from Metallica than what is available in this go around?
Speaker: I mean, obviously you have your classics like enter Sandman and master of puppets.
Speaker: I know that they had newer stuff in there as well, but it, it felt like some of the songs were taken out as well.
Speaker: Where's there, where's something, all the songs, all the songs from 2013 are in there.
Speaker: Just add to it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just added.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We went from 14, well, 13 songs in the original game, plus a 14th song, the end of the line.
Speaker: And so 14 songs in the original.
Speaker: Now there's this one's shipping with 22 songs.
Speaker: So there's eight more.
Speaker: And yeah, it's really cool because you have all the ones that you like.
Speaker: And now you have a chance to like some new ones.
Speaker: Like I personally, I fell in love with King Nothing.
Speaker: I love that song.
Speaker: That is actually, that's one of my favorite Metallica songs.
Speaker: It is such a good one.
Speaker: It's on this game.
Speaker: So I'm like, I know what I'm picking now whenever I play Metallica.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And actually, it is nice because you get so used to, you know, the, you know, the iconic albums, right?
Speaker: You get you because I'm 50 now.
Speaker: So like I grew up like listening to, you know, the Ride the Lightning and, you know, Kill Them All and Justice for All and all that.
Speaker: And I would say that most of us, we kind of.
Speaker: move on with, you know, we, we move on with the, as genres change and what becomes in vogue.
Speaker: And so we're usually not as familiar with the later stuff.
Speaker: And I would even argue with rush.
Speaker: I mean, I followed rush basically my entire life and there, you know, there's an album called snakes and arrows.
Speaker: I've probably only listened to the album less than five times.
Speaker: Oh, and it has Far Cry is amazing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, it's good.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: But it is just human nature.
Speaker: I have probably listened to power windows over a thousand times.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so, you know, and this is the great thing because you are introduced more to these later gems that you, that you didn't get exposed to.
Speaker: And I would argue the same thing with Iron Maiden.
Speaker: I mean, I, uh, Iron Maiden, uh, live after death is their live album that, you know, it's the power slave.
Speaker: So it's basically the, the premium one that was their Zenith.
Speaker: That was their peak.
Speaker: And I've probably listened to that album like a thousand times, but there's some later stuff that I, I just am not familiar with because, you know, I got older and moved on, but yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there's also, you know, hit the lights was from their first album and that's on the new game too.
Speaker: So, you know, it's it's a whole bunch of new songs.
Speaker: Who chose the songs?
Speaker: I think that was the band.
Speaker: I think they, um,
Speaker: that they're basically the ones that were like, these are the ones, you know, I'm not sure I wasn't involved in, in how that worked, but I know the band definitely played a large role.
Speaker: So I'm not, I'm not entirely sure.
Speaker: It's funny that you say that just because when we were there at Pinball Expo, Charlie Benante, if that's how you say his last name, the drummer of Anthrax was there.
Speaker: Because he was there with Tim Sexton.
Speaker: They did the WIC seminar.
Speaker: And it was funny because they were talking about
Speaker: hit songs.
Speaker: And he said, you know, it kind of stinks sometimes because you kind of, there's a hit song you make that you kind of don't want to play anymore because you have to just play it so many times.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You get tired of it.
Speaker: And so it's, it's funny because it's like, I half wonder if, if the band picked these songs because they genuinely love them or if it's one of those things like, yeah, we got to put it in there because it's like,
Speaker: like like those fans that threw a fit that dave graal didn't play ever long at one of the concerts this summer like it's my it's my band like i can play whatever i want you know
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I will say it's probably a mix because one thing I've looked at is when a band comes, you look at the set list.
Speaker: And when you look at the songs that the famous ones, the ones that are known for, and there's usually bands, if you're a great band, you have like six great songs that everybody knows.
Speaker: And, you know, sometimes you have bands that, you know, they're like,
Speaker: one or two songs that everybody knows and kind of filler.
Speaker: But if you look at the songs they select to couple with those other ones, it actually tells you a lot more about what the band actually likes to play.
Speaker: because eventually you are going to get tired of the ones, even your hits, you're going to get tired of them.
Speaker: But when you see them mixing in some other ones, it makes me take a little more, pay a little more attention to those other songs because it's like the, these are the songs that mean something to the band.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I mean, luckily in Metallica's case, they have like,
Speaker: a million songs that everybody knows and loves.
Speaker: So like when they had their concert in Chicago, I went, I was going to go both nights.
Speaker: They actually had so many songs that they were able to have two completely different set lists on Friday and Sunday.
Speaker: And I went on Friday and they didn't even play enter Sandman or one or the unforgiven.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: Three of what I would call their everybody knows them songs, right?
Speaker: Yeah, they're the banger songs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So obviously they played them on Sunday, but they didn't they didn't play them on Friday, which just tells you like how many good songs this band has.
Speaker: And I was kind of bummed I didn't get to see him on Sunday because I was actually still playing in a tournament that was running late and I was playing on Metallica.
Speaker: in the final four and i won that game so i was kind of at the metallica concert in spirit it was a sign i had a huge crank it up for the win uh it was that was a fun tournament that was uh i think that was the andy bagwell silver ball social that he runs every year at entarium oh nice so so that concert you went to was that the same one with iron ice nine keels opening and limp biscuit is the the co-headliner
Speaker: No, those names don't sound familiar.
Speaker: Okay, that must be the current tour.
Speaker: It was the latest 72 Seasons tour that they just did, yeah.
Speaker: Well, I know they're switching between Suicidal Tendencies and Pantera one night, and then the other night is Ice Nine Kills and
Speaker: and Limp Bizkit.
Speaker: And so maybe that's the new lineup because they just reannounced 72 still going and they're doing it again this summer.
Speaker: The first one you said sounded more familiar, yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I got there late.
Speaker: When I did go, I didn't see the opener.
Speaker: I got there at like
Speaker: you know, right when the band went on, which worked out for me, but I didn't realize how far parking is downtown.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You got there for the opener, but you didn't get there because of parking.
Speaker: Well, traffic to traffic and parking traffic was awful.
Speaker: I need to figure out how to, you know, do what every other Chicago does and take the, uh,
Speaker: the L everywhere.
Speaker: But unfortunately, you know, I'm just outside, like on the suburbs where I'd have to somehow get to an L station first.
Speaker: And at that point I'm already in my car.
Speaker: I'm like, uh, you know, let's see.
Speaker: I'm, I'm actually just scanning.
Speaker: It looks like the closest I could get is, uh, maybe I'll have to go to Vegas, April 12th, Denver.
Speaker: Just, just drive through and pick me up.
Speaker: Let's go to Denver.
Speaker: I think I'd rather go to Vegas.
Speaker: party pooper.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Like Denver's actually kind of a pain for me.
Speaker: Like, Oh, it's Josh on the East side of Utah and you're on the West side.
Speaker: So I, I'm in the, you know, I'm in the big city.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: I'm not really, I'm, I'm in like the Elk Grove of Salt Lake city.
Speaker: And so like, you know, I, I'm about 30 minutes from downtown in, in a suburb, but yeah, Josh is like three hours away from me.
Speaker: Actually.
Speaker: Josh, we've known each other for what, like eight years.
Speaker: I've still never been to his house.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He even messaged me once.
Speaker: So there's this big lake by where I live.
Speaker: It's called Flaming Gorge.
Speaker: And the river is like world-class fly fishing.
Speaker: And it's the Green River.
Speaker: And there was even a movie made with it with Brad Pitt called like A River Flows Through It or something.
Speaker: River Runs Through It.
Speaker: River Runs Through It.
Speaker: So it's funny because like Scott texts me.
Speaker: He's like, what is there to do up at like Flaming Gorge?
Speaker: I'm like, are you like...
Speaker: 30 minutes from me.
Speaker: You're not going to stop by.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I, I had, okay.
Speaker: I had like my young man, my young men's group from church.
Speaker: It's not like, okay, everybody, we're just taking a big detour and going to my friend's house.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You should have, you should be like, and we're going to stop.
Speaker: It's funny in life.
Speaker: You get that, you get that situation quite a bit where you're so close to someone yet so far away.
Speaker: Like, like, you're like, Oh, can we just like, you know, right there?
Speaker: Or like, yep.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: What, uh, what's the one moment that you put in this game that people who are familiar with Metallica that are going to say, wow, that, that, you know, it's the moment maker, right?
Speaker: It's the, this is the it thing.
Speaker: So what is it about this version that is going to affect people?
Speaker: Well, I mean, what's the ball rug coming out, you know?
Speaker: I mean, probably when you start electric chair multiball, it's got all the same cadence as the other one, but now there's UV and Sparky moves a lot more violently.
Speaker: And you kind of feel the whole game kind of shake.
Speaker: It's very intense, and it's definitely a moment maker.
Speaker: And then just like the hammer mech is so good now.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, so good.
Speaker: So amazing that like...
Speaker: You just, you have the ball trapped.
Speaker: And I don't know if you guys, have you guys watched the gameplay video me and Borg did?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It, it, it looks, it's impressive.
Speaker: You shoot that thing and it's just like stops dead in its tracks and then just smashes it down.
Speaker: And it just, it just all looks so cool.
Speaker: So I really like those two moments for sure.
Speaker: But I mean, everything in the game, you know, when you start Grave Marker and you see the grave, you know, rise up and the animations that are just so, they just fit so perfectly.
Speaker: Like the animations absolutely crushed it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker: So I got to know, is Gary Stern a metalhead?
Speaker: Because between Metallica, you've got like,
Speaker: I saw like a picture of Kerry King in Stern the other day.
Speaker: You got Scott Ian from Anthrax showing up, Charlie Benante.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I get a vibe that he's like a Hall & Oates guy.
Speaker: I have no idea.
Speaker: Where are all these metal guys coming from?
Speaker: I should hang out with Gary Moore, I feel like.
Speaker: I'm pretty sure he's a Hall & Oates guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So the, um, as with everything, I'm assuming you, I'm assuming Stern is developing, uh, you know, accessories for this.
Speaker: You know, I I'm assuming there's a topper in development.
Speaker: I'm assuming there's a shooter in development, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker: Um, is, is there, is there any estimation on when we're going to see any of that stuff?
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I mean, we have what we would like.
Speaker: You know, the estimation that we want is very soon.
Speaker: You know, we want it as soon as we can, but we got to make sure that we have them and that...
Speaker: They're made right.
Speaker: They all get announced at once.
Speaker: You can trick out your game completely.
Speaker: You're not waiting for the shooter knob.
Speaker: You're waiting for the expression lights.
Speaker: You're waiting for the topper.
Speaker: The
Speaker: accessories and stuff, the code and stuff is pretty much there for that.
Speaker: So, you know, we're, we're full steam.
Speaker: I'm excited for people to, to get them.
Speaker: Cause I know a lot of people love their accessories.
Speaker: It looks like Scott, you're missing an iron maiden topper there.
Speaker: I am missing an iron.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So here's, here's my question.
Speaker: My question is the only topper.
Speaker: So you guys made a topper for the premium.
Speaker: It was like, you know, it was the Egyptian theme.
Speaker: And you guys have never remade it.
Speaker: So you only have the, you know, the 3D one, the Aces High one.
Speaker: But part of the, just like the Aces High topper on the Egyptian theme doesn't seem to fit as well.
Speaker: So I'm torn.
Speaker: I want to get.
Speaker: You could buy an LE and then you'll, then you won't have the Egyptian theme and you'll be able to put the Aces High topper.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's true.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: You know, I, what I could do is I could get the aces high topper and then change Eddie out for like a, you know, a Pharaoh that's flying the, the jet.
Speaker: You know, I actually didn't even know that we had a topper for the Egyptian version.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: No, you'll have to look for it.
Speaker: It's you know, I think it may have, no, maybe it wasn't at Logan.
Speaker: Maybe they had the aces high topper or the aces high topper.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Just Google it.
Speaker: It's just like topper Egyptian.
Speaker: Maybe I'll send it to you later.
Speaker: But yeah, it's, but you guys have, I really have tried to figure out what to do.
Speaker: And I think I'll probably just end up pulling the trigger on the aces high topper.
Speaker: Don't do it.
Speaker: Gomez is secretly making you a pyramid.
Speaker: What does we say?
Speaker: No, he's not.
Speaker: No, he's not.
Speaker: You need to start hitting him up again.
Speaker: You just need to bug him, you know?
Speaker: No, it's fun.
Speaker: And then you'll find out to George Gomez that lives in Reno.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So we told that story, right?
Speaker: Yeah, we did.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he said thank you for being with us.
Speaker: I saw George Gomez when they were – so I was at the factory tour at the end kind of babysitting the Metallicas.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so people – did you guys go on the factory tour this year?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we did.
Speaker: Tim actually took me on the tour.
Speaker: Oh, cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I, I'm sorry if I don't remember, if you literally had a 20 minute conversation with me, I was so.
Speaker: You were busy.
Speaker: I waved.
Speaker: I talked to you briefly at expo and you were, you were so busy.
Speaker: It was, it was, yeah, it was a crazy, it was like a reveal, you know, and I'm just like everywhere all at once sort of thing.
Speaker: But, um, uh, what was I, where was I going with this?
Speaker: At the Stern tour, you were.
Speaker: Oh, George Gomez.
Speaker: I saw someone with a name tag that said George Gomez.
Speaker: And I was like, did you steal that out of George's office?
Speaker: It's like, no, my name is George Gomez.
Speaker: Well, OK, so we told the story on the last episode, but because we've been before Expo, we were talking about, hey, we're ordering hats, but we want to make sure if you really want a hat, make sure you order it.
Speaker: And so George Gomez ordered two hats.
Speaker: And so Josh went up to George Gomez of Stern and said like, Hey, here's the hats.
Speaker: And George is kind of looking confused.
Speaker: Like, Oh, okay.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Well, he wasn't confused.
Speaker: Cause we messaged him before.
Speaker: Oh, that's right.
Speaker: We said, which size he's like, Oh, I need this size.
Speaker: So you gave him a hat and then you gave the other George Gomez a hat and everyone got hats?
Speaker: Well, okay, we ran out of hats.
Speaker: We had to order him and mail him to the George Gomez in Reno.
Speaker: I'm still waiting for his to be finished.
Speaker: Yeah, and he's a super nice guy.
Speaker: He's like a cop.
Speaker: He's a cop or a police trainer or something like that in Reno.
Speaker: It's hilarious.
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: Well, is there anything that we missed that you want to talk about, Ray, before we shut this down and wrap it up?
Speaker: What should we have asked you about Metallica?
Speaker: I think I managed to shoehorn all my little anecdotes in appropriate places.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it was just a lot of fun to work on.
Speaker: I'm excited that I'll be able to do code updates, get to see people play it.
Speaker: It was very popular at Expo, obviously.
Speaker: Oh, another thing was kind of balancing how much of the UI.
Speaker: I guess we talked about that too.
Speaker: Basically when you should see the UI, when you should see full screen videos versus, you know, I try to make it so you always have the score showing as much as possible once the ball is, you know, showing a multi-ball start or something.
Speaker: But it was just cool to be able to be kind of the lead and make decisions without, you know, it's like great power comes great responsibility.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's fun.
Speaker: So I'm happy with it.
Speaker: And I hope everyone gets there soon.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: you know, loves it.
Speaker: It's going to be great.
Speaker: One thing I did forget.
Speaker: Now I, I know that when you started rush, you actually didn't know much of the rush music.
Speaker: Um, uh, Foo Fighters.
Speaker: Did you know much of the Foo Fighters music?
Speaker: Was that, no, I knew probably less Foo Fighters than I did rush.
Speaker: Um, Metallica.
Speaker: I only knew Metallica from the old Metallica game.
Speaker: because I didn't, before the old Metallica game, I had never really listened to Metallica, but then since that game came out, I had slowly been adding those, the pinball songs to my playlists.
Speaker: And, um, then now that this game came out, I got to listen to them all again.
Speaker: Now in stereo, you know, it sounds really good on a spike to, uh, system.
Speaker: So, um, yeah, there's a lot of Metallica songs.
Speaker: I really like, um, pretty much all of ride.
Speaker: The lightning is fantastic.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: I actually like Enter Sandman and Unforgiven.
Speaker: I know that's a hot take, but I really like him.
Speaker: The Black Album came out when I was in high school, and that was the album that everybody said they sold out on it, but it was a mass appeal.
Speaker: There are great songs on there.
Speaker: You kind of need an entry point, right?
Speaker: I feel like that is one of the best entry points to Metallica.
Speaker: Listen to the Black Album.
Speaker: If you don't like the Black Album, you're probably not going to like their other stuff.
Speaker: It's the Gateway album.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's why I always felt bad.
Speaker: I don't know if you guys know who Atreyu is.
Speaker: Okay, yes, I've heard of Atreyu.
Speaker: Yeah, go on.
Speaker: Not the dragon from The NeverEnding Story.
Speaker: There was an actual band called Atreyu.
Speaker: I've never seen that movie.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I've never seen Labyrinth.
Speaker: Well, okay, I saw Labyrinth once and I don't want to see it again.
Speaker: I had never heard of Labyrinth and everything I saw about it made me feel similar to how Scott feels, which is this would be a movie where I would watch it and be like,
Speaker: what yeah what happened yeah but i'm sure if i watched it if i watched it when i was a kid i probably would have loved it you know and i think that's what happens now you now you see david bowie dancing around with this shiny cod piece and you're just like what is going on yeah weird but i'm sure you did the same thing they were like a death metal scream band and then they made like a
Speaker: a mainstream rock album and they caught a lot of slack from their fans, but it propel them.
Speaker: If you haven't listened to, it's called lead cells and or lead cells and paper anchors, amazing album.
Speaker: But, but then they like reverted back because they got so much hate mail for what they had done.
Speaker: It was very interesting because I felt like they kind of slid back into obscurity after doing that.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker: I got started with the Black Album and with the ones that the pinball game had.
Speaker: But then as I'm going back and listening to their other stuff, I like it too.
Speaker: Yeah, Master of Puppets will always be just incredible.
Speaker: Metallica actually went through phases.
Speaker: Not too many bands have the longevity to actually go through phases.
Speaker: Like Rush went through phases and any Rush fan can tell you what phase is their favorite.
Speaker: I'm actually an outlier.
Speaker: I like the 80s phase, the synth phase.
Speaker: Or like subdivisions?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Basically, my favorite albums are Moving Pictures through Hold Your Fire.
Speaker: There's eight albums right there.
Speaker: And it is...
Speaker: Sorry, that's nine.
Speaker: But it's like there are a lot of stuff that people are like, oh, this is not anything like Rush.
Speaker: I'm so glad they went back to the other stuff.
Speaker: I'm like, that's fine.
Speaker: But that was my teenage years.
Speaker: And so like, that's when I listened to all that.
Speaker: But yeah, it's okay.
Speaker: So
Speaker: Did you, you had an appreciation for the band, but in, in just getting the, so I'm, I'm kind of curious, right?
Speaker: What is on your set list?
Speaker: If you, if, if you're not, if you were familiar with rush, if you weren't familiar with Foo Fighters, weren't familiar with Metallica outside of the, the game, what is on your set, your playlist?
Speaker: I mean, honestly, it's probably at least 50% video game music.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Then there's a, every weird Al song that he's ever released.
Speaker: I have on my phone.
Speaker: um and then just kind of various random other things like smash mouth uh stuff that i grew up with in the 90s like pop whatever pop rock was you know in the 90s like blink 22 yeah that kind of yeah some of that stuff um and then this other just popular music i don't know stuff you'd hear on the radio like i'm one of the weird people that like
Speaker: pop is what I like.
Speaker: Like, like whatever is popular.
Speaker: That's not weird.
Speaker: That's not weird.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I guess it's weird that I'm admitting it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I love it when people talk about hating on Nickelback and Creed.
Speaker: I'm just like, they sold like a ton of albums.
Speaker: Someone bought those.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like I, I had, I had some Nickelback.
Speaker: I had some Creed.
Speaker: Like we all bought the albums and then pretending like they're not cool.
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You, you still went to the concerts.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: You look forward to Christmas every year.
Speaker: So when they on thaw Mariah Carey, you can enjoy her Christmas single.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: One thing that is hilarious though, if you haven't done it, you can put on the, the twisted sister Christmas album.
Speaker: because it's actually hilarious.
Speaker: And he, cause he goes through and he, so their, their breakout song was, we're not going to take it, you know, and I want to rock, you know, they were from the same album, but the funny thing is we're not going to take it.
Speaker: Someone pointed out, you know, that's actually the same chord progression as like,
Speaker: Oh, come all you faithful or something like that.
Speaker: Well, yeah, that's the other 25% is a classic rock, like Boston, Leonard Skinner, um, stuff from the set.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: I saw something, you know, the Boston third stage album with the alien thing.
Speaker: It's a guitar.
Speaker: Turn it upside down.
Speaker: That's their first album is a giant guitar.
Speaker: Is it their first one or second?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Their main album, Boston, with the guitar, the spaceship, is a giant guitar.
Speaker: It's a giant guitar inverted.
Speaker: Yeah, that's something I just barely found out.
Speaker: That is probably, in my opinion, the greatest album of all time.
Speaker: But yeah, I love that first album, Boston.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: If you want a really funny, kooky Christmas song, Sum41 teamed up with Jack Black and he made a song called All I Want for Christmas.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: All the Cool Things I Want for Christmas or something like that.
Speaker: It's hilarious.
Speaker: It's definitely not appropriate to play on this podcast.
Speaker: Anything Jack Black probably isn't appropriate for anyone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it's pretty great.
Speaker: If you haven't heard it, definitely check it out.
Speaker: Just type in some 41 in Jack Black and it'll pop it right up for you.
Speaker: The Bare Naked Ladies Christmas album was actually really good.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I put that on too occasionally.
Speaker: I can't wait for Stern to come out with the Bare Naked Ladies pinball machine.
Speaker: I know Ed Robertson would never say they need one, but I think the rest of the world would agree they need to have a pinball machine from Stern.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It would be a little challenging given the founding, you know, like the Ed, Ed is not talking to one of the founding members of the band for.
Speaker: Oh, they made up and they got, they got back together a couple of years ago.
Speaker: I don't think he's back in the band, but they did like a reunion show.
Speaker: Oh, five years ago.
Speaker: Well, good for them.
Speaker: I know that he, the, the, okay.
Speaker: What was the other guy's name?
Speaker: It was Ed Robertson.
Speaker: And I, I can't remember.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He went through, he went through a lot of issues.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much, Ray.
Speaker: We are so excited for this game.
Speaker: I feel this game is going to be...
Speaker: it's going to be like the L one games that you guys put on the line, like every other month.
Speaker: I think Metallica is going to be on the line every other month for the next five years.
Speaker: Like this thing is going to keep selling.
Speaker: It will, it will.
Speaker: Oh man, that's awesome to hear.
Speaker: I hope so.
Speaker: I'm super excited to be a part of it.
Speaker: And I think it's just awesome that a lot of new people get to experience such a great game.
Speaker: And yeah, it's a lot of fun to work on.
Speaker: It's awesome.
Speaker: If you want to get a hold of Raymond Davidson, how do they get a hold of you, Ray?
Speaker: You can usually, I mean, Facebook message or Discord, ratedpinball.com.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's easy.
Speaker: Ray has a really active Discord.
Speaker: So if you like talking rules and pinball, that's a good one to go on.
Speaker: Or pinball hot takes.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: If you want to get ahold of us, we are lose a kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: You can get ahold of us on Facebook, Instagram, X, Twitch, YouTube.
Speaker: If you're watching right now, also, uh, we haven't done it for a couple episodes, but let's do a content creator of the episode, uh, nap arcade.
Speaker: If you want all of your updates and all the cool stuff, go check out nap arcade.
Speaker: And if you're loving what you hear about what Ray day did with Metallica and you're just jonesing for a new pinball machine,
Speaker: Where do you get it again, Scott?
Speaker: Okay, Zach and Nicole Mini flipping out pinball and telling them loser kid sent you.
Speaker: But I'm not kidding.
Speaker: This isn't hyperbole.
Speaker: Buy Metallica.
Speaker: This game is awesome.
Speaker: And even if you had a Metallica in the past, this is like unwrapping Christmas and Easter and Flag Day all at once.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: and like scott said tell them loser kid sent you because they'll give you something extra special they'll help you we're not allowed yeah we're not allowed to talk about it here but you talk about them on messenger so scott send us off what do you say you know what seriously go by metallica i know no no qualifications whatever buy metallica and if you can get a hold of an le you you get that le
Speaker: Thank you.
